


pagan of the good times

by ZeroMonster



Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Amnesia, Exes, Getting Back Together, I read All the Crooked Saints, M/M, Saints and Pilgrims, jaydick-flashfic: amnesty, jaydick-flashfic: atonement, mild body horror, stupid boys in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 00:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19140229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeroMonster/pseuds/ZeroMonster
Summary: Dick’s being performing miracles on and off for a decade but now he's done for good. Jason’s green eyes are his miracle and he’s been living with it for years. Despite everything, they still understand each other.In which Gotham has saints along with her capes, Dick grovels a lot, Jason might be living a hangover movie, there's glowing skulls and coffee shops and somehow, the most ridiculous part about it is how in love they still are with each other.





	pagan of the good times

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by All the Crooked Saints but all you need to know is that in Stiefvater's book, the Soria saints can make the inner darkness visible. Once the pilgrims can see their own inner darkness face to face, it is their decision to perform another miracle in themselves: banish that darkness once and for all. The Soria are forbidden to help with this part, but I changed it a bit so that only the saint performing the miracle is forbidden this.
> 
> Thank you so much to Kdin for holding my hand through this and waiting patiently for me to get my shit together!

> “You can hear a miracle a long way after dark.”
> 
> ― Maggie Stiefvater, All the Crooked Saints

 

 

Dick adjusts the bag over his shoulder, lighting candles with the other hand. On top of that, neon lights come to life in place of the chandeliers Dick never took down in the hopes of one day convincing Damian to swing from them... that never happened. Dick blamed Alfred.

 

“Thanks, Dick,” Duke murmurs distractedly. Dick salutes him and retreats to the back of the room.

 

Unlike Dick, who needs utmost silence to perform a miracle, Duke has music coming out of speakers: bass vibrating through his body, in his blood, against his bones; a pale comparison to the charged atmosphere that becomes more electric with every second Duke falls deeper into meditation.

 

The last rays of sun come through the windows illuminating the wood panels, the room’s decor, the Saint himself.

 

The most powerful Saint Gotham’s seen in generations.

 

And finally, the Pilgrim.

 

They all come for the same reason, whether they know it or not. It doesn’t matter if they arrive with purpose or by chance, miracles spring from darkness and Gotham has that in spades, ingrained in the concret, ingrained in her people.

 

“Uhm. I’m just the delivery guy, man,” the boy says.

 

“You don’t want the miracle?” Duke asks.

 

“Not particularly? I’ve heard what you guys do and -”

 

“Too late, it’s already started,” Duke interrupts. “There’s something inside you, doesn’t let you sleep, makes you restless, don’t you want it gone?”

 

The boy closes his mouth with an audible click, he stares at Duke with reluctant wonder and asks, “What is it?”

 

“Your own darkness,” Duke says.

 

“How do you know all that?”

 

“I can see it. In flashes of light. Darkness.” Duke’s vision loses its focus for a second. “Also, they can feel it.” He nods at the darkest corner of the room, where a few bats have escaped the cave and hang down from the beams that support Duke’s large assemble of lights. They chitter and extend his wings, excited with the prospect of a impending miracle.

 

“Holy shit.” The boy flinches.

 

Duke raises an eyebrow. “This is Gotham, don’t tell me you've never seen bats.”

 

“Never indoors,” he murmurs over the increasing tempo of the music.

 

“Shhh. It’s time,” Duke says, closing his eyes again.

 

Dick’s being performing miracles on and off for a decade, first as Bruce’s backup, then as his stand in, but he never really cared for it. He wasn’t even supposed to be able to do it, but being Bruce’s family was transfiguring, by the time he put on the cape he’d been converted.

 

Not Duke. He’s been performing miracles before he’d been taken under Batman’s wing, same as his mother, another bloodline of miracle workers. Between the Waynes and others with the same ability, it’s a miracle in itself that Gotham isn’t overflowing with Pilgrims.  

 

As it stands, they are very much scattered along the city’s streets like metas are in other cities, but much more noticeable.

 

The tidal wave of energy, almost like sound, almost like a touch, washes over the room and he remembers how it feels to be the Saint. He remembers how it feels to be the Pilgrim: his skin as sheer as a cobweb, opening up and Bruce scooping out the dark.

 

The bats now drown the sound of hip hop. Dick doesn’t close his eyes.

 

Under the boy’s hair, golden veins with thorns begin to grow toward his face, they crawl above his ears, his forehead and chin; they sit there, crisscrossed, the sharp ends touching his cheeks. From a certain angle it looks like teeth, from another, like a crown.

 

“What’s happening? What have you done?” The boy touches frantically along the veins.

 

“Wasn’t me. I only bring out the darkness,” Duke says and materializes a milkshake from behind him. “It takes the form it has to in order to clue you in what must be done, what _you_ have to do, to vanquish it. That’s the second part of the miracle.”

 

“Don’t worry, we won’t leave you like that,” Dick intervenes. “Our family personally helps all our Pilgrims. We’ll find out what you need, and help you get through this.”

 

“It’s one of the many Wayne Foundation charity programs.” Duke grins, takes a sip from his milkshake. “We do everything we can to help Gotham and its people.”

  
\+ +

“There’s a new one,” Dick says.

 

After the delivery boy had calmed down, he’d said goodbye to Duke and was on his way out of the manor when he saw Cass walking in the opposite direction, deeper into the rooms. She nods in acknowledgement.

 

“It’s Tim’s turn,” she says.

 

“How generous,” he teases. He glances at the board the teens had set up with their current score. Cass was ahead by two rehabilitated Pilgrims as the two tallies boldly drawn under her name proclaimed.

 

“I got twins last time,” she says.

 

“Ah, I remember.”

 

It had been very Charles Perrault: one twin created snakes while speaking, the other created pearls. It was a guess as to which one would get what, come dawn. Dick doesn't know the specifics, he never does.

 

As the Saint, the one performing the miracle, he couldn't interact with the Pilgrims. It was more than taboo, it was hazardous to the health. Not his, though, theirs: the miracle spiraled out of control, their symptoms took control of their bodies, they were harder to save.

 

He just wishes Duke can cope with the isolation better that he did, but he already held himself so apart …

 

“You did a good job,” Cass says, serious, kind.

 

“Hey, that’s my line,” Dick says. She eyes the bag at his shoulder and offers him a small smile.  

 

“Get out of here. But… come back soon,” she says.

 

“I will. Keep an eye on him,” he gestures to the room he just left.

 

“He doesn’t need us.”

 

“No,” he agrees, “but it’s what family does”

  
\+ +

He takes to the rooftops as soon as the sun comes down, flies through the city to ground himself because irony is a thing that happens to other people, and tracks Jason down in a matter of hours because he was never going to end up anywhere else.

 

Now he's deep in Red Hood's territory, fully aware that Jason doesn't want to see him and has no one to blame but himself.

 

He gets distracted enough that Red Hood manages to shoot him out of the sky. He rolls to soften his landing at the same time that he curses Jason and thanks himself for thinking ahead and wearing the reinforced suit.

 

"I'm asking this just once." Jason's voice comes flat dead through the modulator of his helmet and it's worse than if he were shouting. "What are you doing here?"

 

Still on the ground, he looks up at the dark figure of Red Hood and it's like undergoing open heart surgery. "The Glowing Skulls case," he says. It's not a lie, but also not the main reason he's here and they both know it. "Catwoman talked, I know you already have the names but I have the address."

 

"It's my case, Nightwing," Red Hood growls.

 

"I know it is, and," Dick pushes himself to his feet and licks his lips. He knows Jason's building a case, the smugglers he's dealing with not high on the list of people Red Hood usually takes _care_ of. They only appeared in his radar because their MO included the raze of the towns they stole archaeology artifacts from. "The information is yours, you'll find the evidence there."

 

"And I guess _you_ are just going to give it to me out of the goodness of your heart?" Jason spits, it's a feat that his disgust comes across through the tech.

 

Dick hesitates.

 

"Fucking hell," Jason snaps. "What do you want?"

 

"Can I come with?" He asks, voice steady.

 

For a second it looks like Jason will punch him, Dick can hear the leather of his gloves creak around a fist, but then he deflates, body language raw and defeated. "Do I have a choice?"

 

"Yes. Of course you do." If Jason tells him to fuck off, he will, he owes him that. Even though it'd probably hurt less if Jason shot him again. Dick almost wishes he would, they'd probably feel better afterward.

 

"You're pathetic, you know?"

 

"I -"

 

"And a condescending asshole, and a manipulative bastard. _Bat_." Jason snarls the last word like a curse.

 

"...Is that a no?" Dick asks, resigned.

 

In response, Jason takes off the helmet, he's not wearing a mask underneath.

 

Jason’s green eyes are his miracle, and he’s been living with it for years. Dick’s emotional turmoil at seeing him like this has quietened over time but the first look’s always striking: the glowing green swallows the white and sometimes drips down his face in pseudo-tears. Like right now.

 

Dick's breath hitches at the abrupt act of intimacy, Jason just tore down all the walls around them, well, except for one. He trust that Jason's taken care of any cameras that could be recording them so he takes off his mask without prompting and lets Jason search his face.

 

Jason's jaw is so tightly shut that Dick worries he'll break something and he looks at him for a really long time, when he's done, he shakes his head and hufs a bitter laugh, says something under his breath that Dick doesn't catch. Jason puts his helmet back on and his voice comes out modulated again.

 

"Don't jump the gun, _sweetheart_ , you're following my lead."

 

\+ +

 

The Glowing Skulls case got its name due to the ancient human remains that found their way - illegally - into one of many the private collections owned by one of the many members of Gotham's elite. The skulls and large bones were coated with a layer of salt in a process that took hundreds of years in a cave in Honduras and at the end of which, the crystals reflected the light. When the locals tried to protest the disturbing of the burial site, the traffickers had set fire to the town. Of this fact, a member of the smuggling ring had been heard boasting in a bar eastown. They never stood a chance against Red Hood.

 

"That was fun," Dick says and winces at his over cheerful tone. They're on the roof of GC Museum of History, where the veracity of the evidence will be confirmed, as it is, the gothic architecture also provides a modicum of privacy and Jason's taken off his helmet again for a smoke, the sun is raising against his profile. "Do you wanna go grab a few chilli dogs? We can -"

 

"No."

 

Dick'd expected Jason to be curt, what he hadn't expected was the nervous energy. Through the fight he'd seemed almost jittery, never distracted but even now, balanced on the edge of the roof he is as as restless as he can be without pacing. Somehow, the lack of insults tells Dick it doesn't have to do with his being here. Not entirely.

 

"Fine," he says. But he can't resist following with: "Can you at least look at me?"

 

Jason turns and all his contained energy finds an outlet as he advances on him.

 

“Fuck. You.”

 

"Jason -"

 

“No, you don’t get to do this. You’ve been gone for _six months_ , Dick! I don’t have to do this. I don’t even have to speak to you.” And with that he storms away.

 

Frozen in place, Dick tells himself that he can do this. He can live without him. If he has to, he can -

 

And then Jason turns on his heel back again.

 

“The only reason I'm still here," he says, before Dick can so much as take a breath. "It’s because I need -”

 

“Help?” Dick hears himself ask.

 

Jason growls at him. “Let me finish my sentences.”

 

“You’ll never finish that one. We’ll be here all day, and something tells me you’re in a hurry.”

 

"I hate you so much."

 

Dick believes him.

 

"Is it another case?"

 

"No," Jason says like pulling teeth. "It's...personal."

 

Oh.

 

"That trip you told me about," Jason continues, nonsensically. "The one from when I was Robin and we went skiing."

 

"The one you don't remember?" He asks and feels the familiar pang of regret.

 

"Yeah," Jason sighs. "Turns out I can also forget things that happened _after_ I came back."

 

Dick blinks. What?

 

"Jason, do you have post traumatic amnesia?"

 

"No," he says, annoyed. "Just, sometimes I lose a day here and there."

 

"What? Jason, how much is 'here and there'?"

 

"Not often," he snaps. "But yesterday, well, the thing is, I don't remember yesterday at all."

 

Well, shit. He didn’t remember this happening before. _Goddamnit, Jason._

 

Dick bits his lip. "How can I help?"

 

Jason shrugs, still tense, and shoves his hand into his pants' pocket, pulls out a few receipts. "Two detectives are better than one."

  


Dick changes out of his suit and into of civvies for what’s next. The first receipt puts Jason at a convenience store on the edge of Robinson Park, at 10 a.m. On the other side of the park, he knows, there’s an apartment (safe house, Jason liked to call it).  

 

“Could you’ve met someone here?” Dick asks.

 

Jason is silent as he thinks this over, he looks at the lush green of the grass and narrows his eyes at it. It _is_ a little too perfect for the climate and the polluted air. Dick glares at it too.

 

“Yeah, I might’ve,” Jason says as he pulls out a pair of sunglasses from somewhere on his leather jacket and puts them on.

 

The green tint of his eyes that didn't come from biology nor from the Lazarus Pit that resurrected him - but rather, from another type of preternatural phenomena - was Bruce's fault. Dick hadn't been the Saint, nor had he been in Gotham much when Jason came to live with Bruce, his mentor had still fulfilled the role. Gotham's playboy sometimes miracle worker. Then Jason had died and Bruce was never the same. _Then_ Jason came back and it had gotten worse. Even if he'd wanted to, Bruce couldn't have stopped the miracle.

 

Jason goes inside and Dick follows him.

 

“Uhm,” he says when he enters and finds Jason preparing a cup of instant noodles.

 

“What. I’m hungry.”

 

Dick glances at the cashier - a girl that’s looking at her phone behind the counter - and begins pacing the aisles. Jason’s voice carries through the open space though he can’t see him anymore.

 

“So, you left?”

 

“I moved out, yeah,” Dick says, picking up a bag of chips. And then, “I left the Saint business. Permanently.”

 

“Huh,” Jason says. A beat. “You made sure they knew you were leaving, tho? You have a habit of just disappearing in the night and taking everything with you.”

 

Dick’s breath catches painfully in his throat at this, even though he sort of saw it coming. He walks the rest of the aisle in something like desperation.

 

“You know I couldn’t -” He begins.

 

“Don’t wanna hear it, Dickiebird,” Jason interrupts with a nasty grin when they come together again. He pays for the noodles and leaves.

 

When Dick comes outside, Jason’s talking with someone. The kid is short and skinny and they’re trading words like blows, with the same comfort.

 

“And don’t piss in the duck pond, jesus,” Jason says as the kid scurries away with the noodles.

 

“Runaway?” He asks.

 

“He lives in the Gotham Common but sometimes sleeps here. He hasn’t seen Ivy. Also, he was annoyed that I asked him the same thing two days in a row, and thinks my glasses are stupid.”

 

“Ouch.”

 

It was 10:30 a.m.

  
\+ +

“There’s a gap between now and midday, any idea?” Dick asks.

 

In the end he got his chili dogs but Jason refused to eat anything. They keep walking in silence for a few more minutes loosely following the pattern of Red Hood’s patrol rute. Yesterday two drug runners from enemy gangs were found dead a ten minutes-walk away from the park, a little below Jason’s radar but maybe he’d checked out.

 

Jason makes a considering sound but then stops across from a rundown clinic with a somber look in his eyes. Of course.

 

“Do you have change?” Jason asks, palm upwards. Dick wipes his hands with the napkin before giving it to him.

 

He buys a coffee - spikes it - and then proceeds to hunt someone down the clinic halls. The nurse scowls at them through her tired eyes when she sees them.

 

“I already stayed two hours pass my shift, I was just leaving.”

 

“I’m bribing you with coffee, just wanted to ask how she is,” Jason says as he passes it to her.

 

She takes a sip and her lips tug down in resignation, she nods at a room in a non verbal question.

 

“Don’t need to see her.” Jason shakes his head.  “Just… how’s she?”

 

The nurse glances at Dick but doesn’t comment. “Still in a coma,” she says instead.

 

Jason nods, the nurse sighs. “I shouldn't tell you this but… I think she’ll make it, there wasn’t any swelling in the brain and,” she shrugs. “I don’t think she’ll give his abusive husband the satisfaction of dying.”

 

“Thanks,” Jason says.

 

She nods before bowing out of the hall. There’s a pause after she leaves.

 

“Did you kill him?” Dick asks.

 

Jason grins, his whole face transforming, terrible even under the sunglasses.

 

“He’s in the room across from hers.”

\+ +

The second receipt says that Jason had lunch at a coffee shop at 11: 50 a.m. The name of the place nudges something in Dick’s mind: Hope Coffee House.

 

He’s starting to think Jason didn’t need him for this, but then he turns to look at him and finds him regarding the establishment with a wary look. Admittedly, this doesn’t look like the kind of place Jason would frequent alone. The floors are white tile and the walls a pastel green, the tables are a really good imitation of wood and light bulbs hang from the ceiling in a very modern design.

 

“Uhm,” Jason glances at the cute girl behind the counter, who is drawing foam leaves on the coffee. “Order for me.”

 

“Ok.”

 

Dick places their order and then slides to the end of the bar to wait for it. This, he thinks, is going better that he expected. He looks at Jason, sitting at a table from which he can see the whole room, and has to wonder what did he do in another life to get another chance at this. Maybe it’s all those miracles.

 

He’s not going to think about it - can’t - because if he does, it’ll be over by the time he looks back.  Dick knows Jason is fast with a blade, fast with his fists, fast with his hips and if he doesn’t hold onto him now, he’ll be gone faster than the Flash. (Hypocritical? maybe, but there’s no time for polite, or coy).

 

He sits at the chair opposite from Jason and slides him a cold vanilla brew and zucchini bread, he takes a sip from his mint chocolate cappuccino and unconsciously slips his feet out from his shoes, he’s being in them all morning and he hates wearing them for long, he slips them back on but this time wearing them like slippers, the back folded inwards. He feels Jason’s gaze boring into his face and freezes, Jason hates him when he takes off his shoes and socks outside.

 

He’s about to put them on properly but Jason’s boot nudges him gently.    

 

“It’s fine,” he says.

 

Dick looks at him confusedly because Jason _really_ disliked this before, but he won’t meet his eyes.

 

“You’re awfully quiet,” Jason says instead.

 

Dick shrugs. “You hate the chatter.”

 

“I hate the silence more.”

 

“Fine. Uhm, I saw Duke perform a miracle for the first time yesterday.”

 

“Oh yeah,” Jason says with fake cheer. “How does it feel like to be replaced again?”

 

“Fantastic,” he says without an ounce of sarcasm.

 

Jason snorts. “Being the Saint of Gotham never suited you, that’s true. I hated it too when I had to do it.”

 

Dick is about to answer to that but then he sees a man disappear through the personnel-only door and he _knows_ that man.

 

“Jason,” he says. “I know why you came here before.”

 

Jason straightens and raises an eyebrow.

 

“I stained my shirtsleeves,” he says. _Laundering money_.

 

He watches as Jason scans the coffee shop anew and snaps his fingers, he pulls out the receipt again and flips it over, there in the back is a number in smudged pencil, it looks like the name of a file.

 

“Come on.” Jason grins as he slides out of his chair.

 

Dick allows himself a second to mourn his coffee. It had been really good.

 

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” he tells his cup.

 

\+ +

From there, the day spirals into the frenzy of a new case. Dick shadows the man from the coffee shop as Jason retrieves his bike - and his helmet - and talks through the comm about the few notes he’d made on the case. He calls it the Mint Chocolate Case because, he says, Dick tastes are a crime.

 

Third receipt, 8:00 pm: an order of kimchy from their favourite korean place. Dick doesn’t mention it, just buys the food and catches up to Jason, who is tracing the money sitting amongst the gargoyles of the building across the restaurant. He takes off his helmet to eat, dusk sifts into his eyes.

 

“Spit it out,” Jason says around his chopsticks.

 

“What?” Dick asks eloquently.

 

“What you’ve wanted to say all day,” Jason says, exasperated. “You’ve been staring at me.”

 

“I don’t really have anything to say.”

 

Jason hms, noncommittal.  “It’s not the killing y’know?”

 

Dick pauses, food halfway to his mouth.

 

“I stopped, for a while, when I could finally think over the cloud of rage. I thought it was the killing.” He gestures at his eyes.

 

“...It wasn’t?”

 

“Nope, I was still like this months after. Maybe Cain is right and what I need is to stop being _willing_ to kill. It can’t be an option when I need to stop a criminal. But we all know that’s not going to happen.”

 

Dick maybe focuses on the wrong part that sentence.

 

“Cass told you that?”

 

“Well, not to me, to Tim, and he told me. You know she can’t bear the sight of me.”

 

“Well, you’re not her favourite person, I’ll give you that.”

 

“Yeah, she’s not mine either.”

 

“Who is it then?”

 

Jason glares at him. “Are you trying to make me say it’s you?”

 

“No. Really, I wasn’t, I’m just curious,” he insists when Jason looks like he doesn’t believe him.

 

“Right.” Jason shakes his head.

 

“What? You don’t have a favourite person? Do you have a favourite book?”

 

“Now you’re doing it on purpose.”

 

“Yeah,” Dick says around a grin. “Yeah, I am.”

 

\+ +

It’s midnight and Nightwing uses Red Hood’s shoulders to propel himself into the fight. Could they’ve saved themselves the physical confrontation? Yes, but where would be the fun in that?

 

“Where’re you staying?” Jason asks, after.

 

They’re on the roof of a bar and the voice of a woman singing ‘that ole ace down in the hole’ can be heard from up there.

 

“I was hoping…” Dick trails off.

 

“Seriously?” Jason asks, disbelieving.

 

“I-I was hoping I could, but I’ve got an apartment in Blüdheaven, Damian bought it and -”

 

“You let a kid manage your real estate?”

 

When Dick doesn’t answer, Jason snorts.

 

“I decide where you sleep,” he says finally, serious.

 

“Deal.” Dick grins, relief invading his lungs until it’s all he can breath.

 

He hasn’t felt like this since he beat the second part of his miracle: nine years old going on ten and his perpetually blood-stained hands were finally clean again. A few weeks later started his training as Robin and when they found Tony Zucco, he went to jail.

 

When they get to the apartment Dick only spares a moment to change into something comfortable before he makes for the couch, only to be stopped by Jason grasping the hem of his shirt.

 

“I said I decide where you sleep.” Jason leads him into the bedroom.

 

The first time, Jason refused to so much as call it dating, he sneered at what had Dick’s previous partners blushing. When he left, Dick spent countless sleepless mornings thinking about how before 25 he’d been ready to marry twice and Jason hadn’t even wanted to label a relationship. But now, as he lays down on the right side of the bed, it feels like they’re in more even footing than before, if only because they both know they don’t want to lose this.

 

Jason follows closely but doesn’t climb into the bed, instead he crowds Dick’s space and the proximity makes his body react in a very pleasant way but Jason’s hands only rest on his side.

 

“Jay -” He starts.

 

 “Last time, after you left,” he interrupts. “I started sleeping on your side of the bed and never really stopped.” With that he uses his grip on Dick to tumble him off the bed. Dick hits the floor with a dull _thunk_. “So now you have to deal, I sleep on this side, asshole.”

 

“I deserved that,” Dick groans and crawls to the other side of the bed.

 

“Yes you did.”

 

A few minutes or hours later Dick lays awake staring at the ceiling.

 

“I had to leave,” Dick says into the night.

 

“Don’t - just don’t.”

 

“I was making it worse,” Dick begs.

 

He turns into his side to stare at Jason, who is already looking at him, his eyes glow even in the grey dawn light, it makes his cheekbones flush green.

 

“I didn’t care.” Jason’s voice is raw.

 

“I know,” Dick says, softly

 

“You leave again and I kill you, Dick,” Jason says, warm breath across his cheeks.

 

Then he kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading Transformation by Anne Saxon while writing this so something of that ended up here.  
> I couldn't write a fic like this and not use Hozier for the title so: title from take me to church!


End file.
